


Naturally

by solrosan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Explanation, Gen, Mental GPS, Science, Sherlock's Violin, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:36:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four things John thinks come naturally to Sherlock and one reason why it appears that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naturally

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Naturally](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/6862) by Laura. 



> In a galaxy far, far away, around the time when I sat down to write my thesis, my friend Laura showed me an amazing video she had made. It inspired me to write this fic as a Christmas present to her, because she is so wonderful to me.

* * *

**1.**  
Out of all Sherlock’s eccentricities, the violin was John’s favourite. Even the playing at odd hours of the day he could live with; after just a couple of weeks at Baker Street he had started to sleep with ear plugs anyway and he preferred a violin playing Sherlock over a non-violin playing one.

It didn’t matter that John knew absolutely nothing about classical music; he still enjoyed listening to Sherlock when he played the violin. He was also pretty sure he could tell that Sherlock was an amazing violinist, the type that not only had the gift for it, but who had nurtured that gift and practised all his life.

By now, John had started to recognise more obscure musical pieces; there was the piece that Sherlock always played when he had too much on his mind and couldn’t bother to play anything too complicated and the ones that often filled the time between step X and step X+1 in an experiment, not to mention that one that John enjoyed and that Sherlock often played when he just wanted to clear his head. John never cared to ask for the titles or the composers, because if it wasn’t Bach or Mozart – or maybe Vivaldi – he wouldn’t remember anyway.

Sherlock made the most complicated pieces sound effortless, but as much as John enjoyed listening to Sherlock when he played, he enjoyed watching him play even more. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t remember the names of the pieces or the composers?

John looked up from the computer when Sherlock put bow to strings, but even if he hadn’t, he would have known exactly what happened. It was the same way every time; Sherlock closed his eyes, held his breath and then, depending on the piece, he would open his eyes again in the third bar. If he didn’t, he would keep them closed until he was finished. The ‘closed eyes pieces’ – as John had come to categorise them – seemed to almost entirely overlap with the ‘mind clearing pieces’.

Today it was an ‘open eyes one’ and Sherlock gave him a very small smirk when he noticed that he was watching. John smiled and closed the computer before leaning back on the rather uncomfortable chair they had at the sitting-room desk to watch Sherlock play.

Sherlock was a different man when he played, John had noticed. Composed instead of controlled, engaged instead of focused. Passionate instead of eager. John wished more people than he would have the opportunity to see him like this. If for nothing else than for the opportunity to see Sherlock express himself through music.

**2.**  
It amazed John that a man, who sometimes had the attention span of a seagull and was more easily bored than a child at a family gathering, could be so interested in chemistry.

John wasn’t a big fan of the subject; to him, the theory was abstract and the practice tedious – no matter the subdivision. He did have basic knowledge of it, his chosen profession required it, but no one became a doctor because of their burning love for citric acid cycle or the fascination of mimicking the body’s neurotransmitters artificially. No, there were biochemists and pharmacologists for that.

Then, of course, there was Sherlock, who was all over the map in his scientific field, just like he was in every other aspect of his life. His method of choice seemed to always be deep-first and that’s how he could be identifying a protein on Monday and studying van der Waals interactions on Wednesday. This didn’t mean that the protein wasn’t identified by Sunday, but to John it seemed like quite a detour. A van der Waals interaction was always a van der Waals interaction, right?

John was constantly fascinated by the patience Sherlock showed in the lab (be it the one at Bart’s or the primitive one on their kitchen table) and how the organised chaos that followed him wherever he went seemed even more organised in the presence of test tubes and hydrochloride acid. Nothing was ever left without lid or cork longer than necessary, everything steadily moved from right to left and, at times, the use of measurement equipment – such as graduates and burettes – seemed more like a habit than a need, as his hands seemed to know the exact amount by themselves. It looked intuitive, like he didn’t even have to try.

It was hard not to think of a mad – but well dressed – scientist when Sherlock held up a small tube to the light and tapped it with a finger. John couldn’t even guess what he hoped to see, but Sherlock seemed satisfied and used a pipette to move the fluid to a new tube. Then he looked at the remaining sludge in the bottom of the first one again before disposing of it and adding something John had been told was an enzyme (they both agreed that John didn’t need more precise information) to the fluid in the new tube.

If Sherlock had just lived some 100 years earlier – when it was possible to actually be a leading expert in more than one field – John was sure his friend would have been able to do a lot of good for humanity. Now, the consulting detective seemed more frustrated that everything progressed faster than he could absorb the knowledge and try the theories.

It didn’t stop him from using it for his own purposes though and today’s analysis would probably have fascinated John more if he hadn’t known that Sherlock was actually trying to establish his generic fingerprints.

**3.**  
From the very first time John had met Sherlock, the man’s extraordinary attention to details had stunned him. Not to mention Sherlock’s ability to use his observations to, not only put two and two together, but solve what seemed like third-order differential equations in his head. It was a super power; something mere mortals couldn’t manage even if they tried and when it didn’t invade his privacy, John found it fascinating.

It never seemed to become mundane to hear Sherlock spit out his deductions, rapidly and efficiently, and John gladly took an ‘Are you stupid?’-glare to get the opportunity to hear him explain just some of them.

Far too often John found himself staring at his friend, trying to keep up and follow along the tangled pathways that seemed to go back and forth in Sherlock’s mind as it systematically catalogued or discarded everything it encountered. John often wondered if Sherlock consciously noticed everything he saw or if his subconscious took care of the cataloguing for him because he so rarely needed to slow down for his observations.

When John did the same thing, often related to his own work, the cataloguing and discarding of facts were very conscious procedures; linking the result of the blood count and the blood pressure to the symptom the patient described, subtracting the effects of the medicine given, adding the side effects, evaluating the result and combining it with knowledge based on experiences…it took time and concentration. Especially when he was constantly interrupted by the patient’s questions, John was a bit envious that he couldn’t ask his patients to shut up sometimes the way Sherlock snapped at Anderson.

The effortlessness of Sherlock’s deductions was impressive and how other people couldn’t see the greatness in what Sherlock could do was beyond John. That was actually even more impossible to understand than trying to grasp how Sherlock’s mind worked.

John paused what he was doing and looked up to watch Sherlock tell Lestrade what the five minutes at the crime scene had given him.

Victim: economist, lived alone – but had a boyfriend, travelled a lot, dieted even more.  
Suspect: woman, cat owner, right-handed, shorter than the victim, probably also an economist but could be another type of office worker.  
Murder weapon: knife…but the forensics had figured that out already.

Then, of course, it all ended with a small bantering between the detective and the inspector. John smiled at it all, Sherlock was a force of nature and the energy bubbling inside him when he was on an interesting case just made everything around him rather grey. It just took John’s breath away and he nodded a quick good-bye to Lestrade before he left the scene to catch up with Sherlock.

**4.**  
Before meeting Sherlock, John had thought he knew the city he lived in, the city he had gone to school in. The city he had called home for his entire adult life, the city he had wanted to come home to when he’d been away at war. Compared to how Sherlock knew London though, John and the city were only distant acquaintances.

Walking around the city with Sherlock was almost as walking around with a human GPS – a GPS who gave instructions in a very commanding voice. Sometimes John wished he could change the setting, he remembered that the German lady in the GPS in the rental car they’d used to go to Cambridge had sounded nice. Not that either of them understood German, but just like on Sherlock, John hadn’t found the mute button and they had been forced to listen to the German lady the entire way.

Running around the city with Sherlock was an even more amazing, not that John had the time to be amazed as he tried to keep up with the detective and his billowing coat. It wasn’t until after the chase, when Sherlock was tying up the suspect and John was catching his breath, that John realised that he had once again jumped between rooftops and almost got hit by a motorcycle when following Sherlock along pathways almost as narrow and winding as the ones in his mind.

Maybe that was why he managed to keep the map in his head, because it resembled his natural way of thinking?

Later, when they walked back home, John was once again surprised by how much time you could save by walking through dark backstreets rather than the lit pavements and road he usually would take. Still he was quite sure he wouldn’t try it without Sherlock….

**+1**  
John was a peculiar and complex man, Sherlock had realised that very early on; doctor, military man, strong moral principles, marksman, former rugby player…loyal friend. He followed what he felt inside, which was almost always his heart. Sure, the man had good instincts, but he often he let his emotions get the better of him. It had become a more and more accepted and appreciated flaw though, seeing as John’s emotions had rather good instincts of their own and complemented Sherlock’s analytical mind well.

If Sherlock was lightning, that struck down on one particular spot at the time with a massive electric force, then John was the rumbling thunder that always followed in its footstep. The thunder, that reached further than the lightning, that stayed longer than the lightning, that never caused as much impact or as much harm as the lightning….

Sherlock looked up from his review article about drug metabolism in the liver and looked at John who was pottering about in the kitchen, talking about something highly uninteresting. Or Sherlock guessed it was uninteresting, most things John talked about when he worked in the kitchen were. It didn’t bother him at all, nor did it seem to bother John that he didn’t respond (or even listen).

At first, the impact John had had on him had been very frustrating, but now it was one of the most natural and comforting parts of Sherlock’s life. He found it exiting how secure John was in himself and what the man did to his own confidence. Everything in his life just felt more effortless these days and Sherlock had to admit – even if not out loud – that it was very much thanks to John’s presence. When John was with him, everything just came naturally.

Sherlock snorted to himself – or at himself – and went back to his article again. It seemed as John had infected him with sentimental emotions. But maybe that was what happened when something was meant to be?


End file.
